The Cavaliers of Virginia. Volume 1 of 2

But again the soothing influences of the scene without imperceptibly stole upon her senses, and she fell into a slumber. Her imagination, now uncontrolled by the sterner qualities of mind, mingled the images retained from the stirring events of the last few days in the most fantastic forms. She saw her mother enter the garden with a slow and solemn step, clad in the habiliments of the grave.

Her form was aerial and graceful, and her features supernaturally beautiful and glorious. Presently this figure was met by another of colossal proportions, approaching the summer house from the opposite end of the garden; his step was grand and majestic, and his countenance stern and warlike. He was clad in complete armour, and his mailed heel as it struck the gravel, sent the blood cold to her heart, and at once convinced her of the reality of the scene. As the figures met they paused and seemed to hold communion for a time, and then pursued their way together; but when they returned to view, the relations of the parties were changed, the colossal figure was using the most violent gesticulation, to which his companion seemed to bow her head in meekness and submission, but not in conviction. At this the other suddenly sprang forward, seized his victim, and was about to leap the garden walls when an attempt to scream dispelled the illusion. Virginia opened her eyes and glanced around the room to assure herself of the reality of the scene before her. The wounded youth still slept soundly, and the lamp still threw its flickering shadows on the wall. By a slower and more cautious movement of the eyes she next examined the garden without; all was still and quiet as the grave, and gazing long and abstractedly upon the little arbour she again gave way to the exhaustion of her physical powers, and again the same figures rose upon her fancy. Now all doubt of their reality was discarded from the very circumstance of the former's having proved a delusion. She knew the other was a dream, but this she felt was truth, and she even went so far as to reason in her mind upon the strange coincidence of the dream, and the present real scene. The gigantic figure was now clad in the gray garb of the Recluse, his limbs manacled with chains, while her mother knelt apart in the attitude of deep and unutterable wo. A crowd was gathered round as if to witness a public execution; soldiers and citizens, knights and nobles mingled in the confused throng. The criminal was kneeling upon his coffin, the cap was drawn over his face, and the fatal word was given! She awoke with the sound of firearms still ringing in her ears, and the piercing shrieks of the female figure thrilling through her veins.

It may be readily imagined that her startled perceptions were by no means tranquillized on perceiving, as she opened her eyes, the shadows of moving figures upon the wall before her. In order to see from whom these reflections came she must turn her head and look in the direction of the opposite wall, but for her life she dared not move! Terror chained her to the couch. At length the shadows moved towards the door! By a desperate effort she turned her head in that direction, and to her amazement beheld her mother dressed in white, exactly as she had seen her in her dream, slowly and steadily leaving the apartment. She clasped her hand to her forehead and endeavoured to recall her bewildered senses. The confused images of her slumbering and waking perceptions were so inextricably mingled together that for a time she was utterly at a loss to know whether the whole was real or a dream. Certainly the actors were the same, and the impressions continuous. She had not long lain in this bewilderment when she heard the door leading into the garden, just beneath her window, softly opened, and her mother in a few moments walked down the avenue in the very direction she had before seen her take.

Her eyes were intently riveted upon the movements of her parent, until they were hid from her view by the intervening trees and shrubbery.

But she removed them not – they were still fixed upon the spot where she had last seen her, until her white robes emerged here and there from the foliage, when her eyes instinctively followed her, straining her already weakened organs to catch the slightest change of position, and seemingly desirous to penetrate the sombre shadows of the night, whenever the figure upon which she gazed was lost to view. At length the door again softly opened beneath her window; and she saw the figure no more. But a very few moments elapsed, however, before another appeared upon the scene, of far more gigantic proportions and questionable business at that place and hour. It was the same figure which she had before seen associated with the one which had just departed; and now that she really saw them in flesh and blood, she was more than ever at a loss to know which and how many of her visions of the night were real and which illusory.

The one now before her eyes was clad in his usual, half puritanical, half military tunic, and as usual he was fully armed, but the weapons hung quietly by his side; his arms were folded upon his breast, and his whole carriage and demeanour was subdued, sad, and melancholy. He stood leaning against the vine-clad column of the arbour, with his eyes intently fixed upon the spot where the preoccupant of the scene had disappeared. His chest heaved with emotion, which ever and anon found vent in laboured respirations of unspeakable misery.

At this moment a fierce watch-dog sprung at the intruder with savage ferocity, and to one less accustomed to danger in all its shapes, would doubtless have proved a formidable foe; but in an instant a heavy blow from his iron sheathed sabre laid the animal struggling at his feet. He stood leaning upon his weapon for an instant, and then moved slowly away until he came near the river, when he laid his hand upon the palisade running along the foot of the garden, and leapt upon the beach like a youth of twenty. In a short time Virginia saw his boat upon the water, his gigantic form rising and bending to his work with desperate and reckless efforts, the frail bark gliding over the smooth waters, "like a thing of life," until it faded away in the distance to a mere speck.

Her eye followed the receding object as it became more and more indistinct, until a mere undefined point was left upon the retina, her own voluntary powers sinking more deeply in repose from the intentness with which she pursued the single object.

How long she slept she knew not, but when she awoke the horizontal rays of the rising sun were beaming through the parted curtains, and the misty drapery from the river was rolling over the hills, and pouring through the intervening valleys in thousands of fantastic forms, weaving, here a rich festoon round the summit of one blue hill, and there spreading out a curtain of mellow tints before another.

The cool and invigorating morning breeze from the river, joined to the effects of her last refreshing and uninterrupted sleep, completely dispelled the shadowy illusions of the night, and she arose comparatively cheerful and happy. She was frightened when she cast her eyes upon the couch of the sufferer and found him awake, to think how much and how long she had neglected him. There was one indefatigable and untiring nurse watching by the bed-side, however! She had stolen in unperceived during the night, and now sat upon an humble seat at the foot of the couch; her eye as brilliant as if it was not subject to the ordinary fatigues of humanity. The invalid too had slept soundly, and awakened this morning refreshed and invigorated, and with all his inflammatory symptoms much abated.

With all these cheering influences around her, Virginia's countenance would have been soon clad in her wonted smiles, had it not been for an unbidden scene which every now and then was conjured up before her imagination, in which those near and dear to her were principal actors. But these, painful and inexplicable as they seemed to her, were far from being well defined in her own mind. For her life, she could not separate the real evidences of her drowsy senses from the vivid images of her imagination. She was firmly impressed, however, with the belief, that some parts of them were true and real transactions! She firmly believed that she had seen her mother and the Recluse during the night – not together certainly, but near the same spot and in quick succession; and she as firmly believed that she had seen the latter disable the watch-dog, mount over the palisade, and hurry away in his boat. So much was indeed true; her mother had actually visited the wounded youth during the night, and she had actually walked in the garden, and the Recluse was actually there, but no meeting took place, except in the imagination of the worn-out maiden.

She entered the breakfast room with these various impressions, real and imaginary, curiously mingled and confused, and bearing upon her own countenance an expression of embarrassment not less surprising to her mother, who was the first person she encountered. Twenty times she was on the point of asking her mother whether she had walked in the garden during the night, but as often a strange embarrassment came over her, resulting partly from what she thought she had seen, and partly from words dropped by the Recluse in her hearing – the whole confused, unarranged and undigested – the latter perhaps being entirely unrecognised by her consciousness, but still operating imperceptibly upon her conduct. She was not a little astonished, therefore, when her mother came directly to the point occupying her own thoughts at the moment, saying, as she approached her, and affectionately smoothed down the clustering ringlets upon her brow. "You slept upon your post last night, my dear daughter? Nay – no excuses – there needs none. You wanted rest, little less than he whom you watched."

"I did not sleep so soundly as you imagine, my dear mother; I saw you, methought, either sleeping or waking, and to speak truly, I scarcely know which state I was in;" and as she spoke she cast a searching glance at her mother, but her countenance was calm and unruffled as she replied, "You must have been sleeping, my dear Virginia, I stooped over you and kissed your cheek as you slept."

"And did you not walk in the garden?"

"Yes I did! is it possible you saw me and spoke not?"

"I did see you, dear mother, but I was afraid to speak."

"Afraid to speak! Oh! you were afraid of waking Nathaniel?"

"No! no! I was frightened at the appearance of your companion in the garden."

"My companion in the garden! my poor child, you must indeed have dreamed; I had no companion in the garden."

Mr. Fairfax coming in at this moment, Virginia hastily took her chair at the head of the table, and busily commenced her duties at the table, her thoughts all the while occupied upon any thing else.

"What a strange being is that Recluse," said Mr. Fairfax, with apparent non chalance, "have you ever seen him, my dear?" addressing his wife.

Virginia dropped the plate she was in the act of handing to her father and was seized with, to her parents, the most unaccountable embarrassment. She endeavoured to make some excuse in order, as she supposed, to hide her mother's inevitable confusion. But the latter calmly replied, "No, my dear, I have never seen him. I have always had some curiosity to behold him, but now that he has proved himself such a public benefactor, I shall not be satisfied till the wish is gratified. Nathaniel had before excited us much by his account of him, but now I suppose the whole city will be eager to pay him their respects."

Virginia stared at her mother during this speech in the most undisguised astonishment, until she saw the calm serenity of her countenance – the expression of truth and sincerity, which had never deceived her, so strongly portrayed there, when she was again lost in bewilderment, which lasted throughout the meal. Her parents, however, were too much engaged with their own subject of discourse to observe her unusual abstraction, and the meal therefore and the dialogue came to a close without any farther development pertaining to our narrative.

CHAPTER XI

"The eager pack from couples freed,Dash through the bush, the briar, the brake,While answering hound, and horn, and steed,The mountain echoes startling wake."The Wild Huntsman.

A few days after the events recorded in the last chapter, the denizens of the ancient city were roused betimes by the sounds of the hunter's horn, the echoing chorus of the eager hounds, and the neighing of the fiery steeds, as they were led forth to the gallant pastime of the chase. The river and overhanging hills were enveloped in an impenetrable veil of mist, and the dew settled in a snowy cloud, upon the hair and castors of the Cavaliers as they issued from their doors, rubbing their eyes and preparing to mount the mettled coursers which pawed the earth and blew thick volumes of smoke from their expanded nostrils. These preparations for the enlivening sports of the field were not confined to a small number of the civic youth, or to the keener sportsmen among their elders – all the gentry of the town and colony, with few exceptions, were assembled on the occasion.

Sir William Berkley with his numerous guests, Gideon Fairfax, with his fellows of the Council, the members of the House of Burgesses, now principally occupying the hotel of the "Berkley Arms," Frank Beverly, Philip Ludwell, Charles Dudley, with the Harrisons, the Powells, &c. all now came curvetting into the public square, dressed in their gay hunting jerkens and neat foraging caps, some with bugles swinging from their shoulders, and others with firearms suspended at their backs.

A stately gray-headed old negro, known by the cognomen of Congo, was in command of some half score of more youthful footmen of his own colour, in the livery of the Governor, each of whom held the leashes of a pair of hounds.

These, from time to time as old Congo wound a skilful blast upon his bugle, opened a deafening chorus, which echoed through the surrounding forests, and awakened from their slumbers the drowsy citizens of the town. Many a damsel peeped from her lattice to catch a glimpse of the gay Cavaliers as they wheeled into the place of rendezvous in parties of tens and twenties, all noisy and boisterous; some with the anticipation of the promised sports, and others from the more artificial stimulus of a morning julep. The sound of Congo's bugle had reverberated through the silent streets in signal blasts to the grooms of the gentry at a much earlier hour of the morning, so that many of the high-born damsels inhabiting the purlieus of this little court, were also on the alert. Among these our heroine, awakened by the echoing chorus of the "hunter's horn," was already dressed and smiling from her window, like one of her own sweet flowers, upon the gay young Cavaliers, as they passed in review before her.

In an adjoining window was another inhabitant of the same mansion, roused by the same cheering notes, but he smiled not upon the joyous throng as they gathered around the spot occupied by Congo and his canine favourites, nor yet upon those of the gay youths who rode up and touched their beavers respectfully to the smiling maiden as they singly or in pairs cantered away over the bridge in pursuit of their day's sport. It was Bacon! his head bandaged and his countenance pale and wan from his late illness and loss of blood.

Nevertheless he was dressed, and as eager for the sport as any youth among them, but exhausted nature negatived his feeble efforts and longing aspirations, and he had seated himself at the window in sullen disappointment. This latter feeling was in nowise subdued by the sight of Frank Beverly, already recovered from his slight wounds, dressed in a scarlet jerken and hunting cap, a bugle over his shoulder, and mounted upon a noble animal apparently as eager to display his fine proportions as his master. The thundering clatter of the chargers' heels as this numerous cavalcade now passed in long succession over the bridge before the gazing citizens, thus untimely awakened from their slumbers, at length began to die away in silence, broken at intervals by the measured tramp of an occasional party of the more staid, older and less eager Cavaliers, pursuing the main body at a pace more suited to their age; or by the gallop of some slumbering sluggard hastening to overtake his more punctual comrades of the chase. Now and then a note from the bugle of some overjoyous youth, as he entered the forest, brought a frown upon the brow of old Congo, whose look was turned in silent appeal against these irregular proceedings, to his master, who rode apart in earnest conversation with Mr. Fairfax. While our sportsmen are thus joyously moving on their way to the appointed spot, we will pursue the thread of the dialogue between the two dignitaries just alluded to, as it had reference to the leading personages of our story.

"Nay, treat not my apprehensions lightly, Fairfax; is not that youth who leans so disconsolately out of your window this morning, a proper knight to catch the errant fancies of a girl of sixteen?" said Sir William.

"He is indeed a right well-favoured boy," replied Mr. Fairfax, "and one calculated to win his way to a colder heart than that of a maiden near his own age. Was he not the means of your own preservation, Sir William, from the knives of yonder murderous fanatics cooped up in the jail of the city?"

"Ay!" said his companion, drily, "I grant him to be all that you say he is, but does not that enforce more powerfully what I have been saying? Ought you not under such circumstances, to acquaint him with the necessity of his finding another house than your's for his home, where your daughter is constantly before his eyes, and what is more important, where he is constantly before her's, not only with the attractions of his own well-favoured person, but in the interesting character of her father's and her uncle's preserver?"

"If the poor youth had ever presumed upon his position in my family, to make advances to my daughter, then indeed there might be some propriety in the course you recommend, Sir William. But I have observed him closely since our last conversation on this subject, and I am satisfied that there is nothing more than fraternal affection between them."

"It is very difficult, Fairfax, for the parties themselves to draw an exact line, where the one kind of affection ends, and the other begins; the gradation from mere brotherly regard to love is so very imperceptible, that the very persons in whom it takes place are often unconscious of it, until accident or warning from others forces it upon their apprehension."

"But where is the necessity of examining into these fine distinctions now, Sir William? Where is the point of the matter."

"To that it was my purpose to come presently, but you are always so impetuous and sanguine, if you will permit me to say so, that I have found it difficult to discuss this matter in your presence, with all the coolness and deliberation which ought to attend the negotiation of an alliance between the kinsman of his majesty's representative in the Colony, and the daughter of his nearest relative – the heiress probably of both their fortunes."

"But has not the match between Virginia and Frank been a settled matter for years?"

"Ay, truly, Fairfax, and I am rejoiced that you remember it; but was it not also agreed, for wise purposes, that the parties themselves should know nothing of the contract until Frank became of age?"

"True, and what then?"

"That time has been passed some months."

"Indeed!"

"Ay, and what is more important to the happiness of the young pair, Frank himself has moved in the business without any prompting from me. This, you know, was what we desired, and the very end for which the matter was kept from their knowledge."

"He has then proposed himself to Virginia, and she has doubtless accepted him! All right, all right, Sir William. I always told you it would turn out just in this way. Every thing turns out for the best. You see the advantage of leaving the young people to themselves."

"Yes, yes, it has all turned out very happily in your sanguine imagination; but you run away with the matter without hearing me out."

"Did you not say it was all settled? I certainly understood you so!"

"No, I said nothing like it. I said that my young kinsman had moved in the business without my prompting; and I intended to say, if you had permitted me, that he had authorized me, this day, to make a formal tender of his hand and fortune to your daughter, through you; which I now do."

"Well, why did you not say so at first, Sir William, and there could have been no trouble about the matter. Instead of that, you read me a long lecture about the danger of harbouring handsome young fellows in my house generally, concluding in particular, with a recapitulation of the various debts of gratitude due from me and my family, and yourself, to poor Bacon. But as far as I am concerned, I give my hearty consent to the proposed union, and you may so assure Frank from me, and tell him that he has nothing more to do, but to appear as every way worthy in the eyes of Virginia as he does in mine."

"There, you see, you are coming in your own immethodical and precipitate way, to the very point with which I set out. I was merely hazarding a few observations upon the various prepossessing qualities of your protegée, and expressing some fears of the intercourse subsisting between him and your daughter, with a view to put you on your guard at once. This was not done with a view to read you a lecture, as you are pleased to say, but from the best grounded apprehensions that things were not proceeding well for our scheme."

"Is there any ground for the fears you mention?"

"There is, Fairfax! Lady Berkley has often of late mentioned her apprehensions to me, that there is a growing and mutual attachment between your ward and your daughter. Frank has observed the same thing, and indeed the very proposals I have just had the honour of making to you, have probably resulted from a desire on his part to bring the matter to an eclaircissement at once."

"I will speak to Virginia and her mother on the subject, and my word for it, my daughter will show you that she knows what is due to her birth and standing in society. But as to turning Nathaniel out of my house! I could as soon turn Virginia herself out. Poor boy, he has a farm of his own, it is true, but my house has always been a home to him, and it always shall be, as long as he continues worthy, and I continue the head of it."

"Ay, that farm! There was another ill-advised piece of generosity; not content with bringing up a foundling like your own son, you must purchase him a farm and stock it."

"Indeed, Governor, you give me credit for much more generosity than I have exercised. I purchased him no farm, or if I did, it was merely as his agent and guardian. He furnished the means himself."

"That was very strange! Very strange indeed, that a youth without occupation, and without any visible fortune, should purchase and stock one of the most valuable plantations in the colony."

As they arrived at this point in their discourse, they had ascended to the top of one of the highest hills within many miles of the city. Here they found the sportsmen who had preceded them, closely grouped together, and all talking at once, while Old Cong, (as he was familiarly called by the youths,) was engaged in slipping the leashes. One pair after another of the fleet animals snuffed the air for a moment, and then bounded down the slope of the hill, carrying their noses close to the earth, and eagerly questing backward and forward through the shrubbery; sometimes retracing their steps to the very point from which they started.

At length one of the foremost of the pack opened a shrill note as he ran, indicative to the uninitiated, only of eagerness and impatience in the pursuit of the game, but Old Congo's experienced eye instantly brightened up, as with head erect, he uttered a sharp shrill whoop, and mounting his fleet courser, he shot down the hill with the fleetness of the wind, making the woods echo with his merry hip halloo, as he cheered them on. By this time the pack were following the leader in the devious trail on which he was now warm; the whole chorus sometimes opening in joyous and eager concert as they came upon the scent, just from the impress of sly Reynard's feet, and then again relapsing into silence. These intervals in the cheerful cry announced the doubt which as yet existed, whether the trail upon which they had struck was any thing more than the devious windings made by the game on emerging from his den, for the purpose, as the negroes stoutly affirmed, of throwing his pursuers out. It seemed indeed as if such had been the intention of the cunning animal, for a plan of the intricate mazes which the pack were threading, if laid down upon paper, would very much resemble a complicated problem in Euclid, or the track of a ship upon a voyage of discovery in unknown seas. Meanwhile Old Congo was in the thickest of them; now cursing one refractory member, and again cheering a favourite. The Cavaliers stood in groups – one foot in the stirrup and a hand on the pummel of the saddle, or smoothing down the curling mane of their impatient chargers. At length the problem was solved, and the hounds were seen coursing in a circle round the brow of the hill, a continuous yelp from the leader, and an answering chorus from the pack, announcing to the waiting gentry, that the game was up. They instantly mounted, and were presently flying over the uneven ground at a speed and with a reckless, yet skilful horsemanship, which bade defiance to all the perils of the chase. Here one lost his cap by the limb of a tree; there another measured his length upon the ground by the stumble of his charger; the main party speeding apace, regardless of all, save the fox and his pursuers.